Courtesy of The Daily PrincetonianPrinceton celebrates its win over Harvard last week, showing off a shirt honoring its late friend, Christian "Crunch" Regulski. The 11-year-old was adopted by the Tigers in a program matching kids with brain tumors and college teams. Regulski died last month.

The pillow had a one-word logo on it familiar to candy-bar lovers everywhere.

CRUNCH.

To anyone who didn’t know the story that has defined this Princeton basketball team, it had to be an unusual sight. But to those who saw what this team had done for the sick boy who had that nickname — and the loss this team suffered when he died last month — that pillow belonged.

“As much as we did for him, he did for us,” said Mavraides, one of the team’s captains. “He’ll be a source of inspiration for me my entire life.”

Princeton will play powerhouse Kentucky in the NCAA Tournament today, and that pillow will be somewhere on the bench. The boy who inspired it will be with the team in spirit, too, and his family will watch and cheer from the crowd at the St. Pete Times Forum.

Crunch was an energetic 11-year-old from Robbinsville named Christian Regulski, a kid who loved video games and the movie “300” but hated cauliflower. A year-and-a-half ago, Princeton “adopted” him as part of the Friends of Jaclyn program that matches children with brain tumors and college teams.

This relationship became more than just a group of college athletes doing a good deed for a local family in need. Crunch became one of them. He sat on the team bench during home games. He stood in the huddle during time outs.

“They were always there, all through the season, picnics in the summer, en masse or separately,” his father, Matt Regulski, said. “They would come by, knock on the door and ask, ‘Can Crunch go to the movies?’ ”

When Princeton first contacted Crunch in October 2009, he was undergoing an aggressive chemotherapy treatment. It would be two months before the players, in groups of three to follow the doctors’ strict guidelines, could travel to the Regulskis’ house to meet him. He greeted them all with a hug.

They kept in touch with e-mails and text messages until a month later, on Jan. 16, 2010, when he was finally cleared to attend a practice. The family was hopeful that Crunch was starting to turn the corner. He even returned to the Pond Road Middle School in May.

But the cancer returned last summer, and this time, there was nothing the doctors could do.

“Chris was always in jeopardy, and that jeopardy kept increasing,” Matt Regulski said. “And as the jeopardy increased, their involvement increased. None of them had to do this. All of them knew the risk, and all of them walked in wide-eyed and embraced him. And kept doing it.”

The benefits from this relationship were not one-sided. Guard Bobby Foley said he started to see a different side of his teammates when they were around the kid, and that the team became closer as a result. Forward Will Barrett said any time he felt the grind of college life, he’d see the ever-present smile on Crunch’s face and forget what he was worried about.

The players remember a tense moment during a time out in a close game early this season, one when the heated exchanges stopped at the sound of a squeaky voice. It was Crunch, singing along with the Kanye West song on the sound system at Jadwin Gym.

“How could you be so heartless? How could you be so heartless?”

The team erupted in laughter. “Coach was like, ‘Just go play,’” Barrett said.

The players were aware that Crunch had started to struggle with the disease this winter. His verbal skills had slipped and his reflexes had slowed. “It was all over him,” his father said of the cancer. The Regulskis had to leave the team’s Feb. 4 game against Harvard early, and on Feb. 8, Crunch was too ill to attend the important matchup against rival Penn.

“I knew that wasn’t a good sign,” Mavraides said.

Crunch died two days later. The players didn’t hear the news until after its road swing to Columbia and Cornell that weekend, when head coach Sydney Johnson told the players during a long bus ride home.

They were in the middle of the Ivy League schedule, but all that took a back seat to their grief. Crunch was laid to rest in an autographed No. 20 Princeton jersey — the number belonging to Doug Davis, who hit the winning shot against Harvard — and matching orange socks.

“He changed every single one of our lives,” Barrett said. “(His memorial service) was one of the most terrible things I’ve ever been through in my life. I’m not going to lie, it was tough to focus on basketball.”

The team honored Crunch at a Feb. 25 home game against Cornell, leaving an open seat on the middle of the bench, placing that blue pillow and a Crunch T-shirt there as a reminder. The players asked Crunch’s brother, 17-year-old Alec, to cut off a piece of the net during the celebration after beating Harvard.

The blue pillow will be in Tampa today. The NCAA has strict rules about everything, especially corporate logos on the court, but nothing will stop Princeton players from finding a way to honor their friend.

His father said they’ve already done far more than he could have imagined. He addressed the team before it left for Tampa, comparing them to firefighters for the bravery they showed in embracing his son when they knew this story might not have a happy ending.

“I don’t care how good a basketball team you are,” Regulski told the players. “I don’t care how well you do in the tournament. That’s always going to be the second best-thing you did.”